


The Nature of Wings

by TwinVax



Series: Critrole Stories [9]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Mighty Nein, Other, Team as Family, Wings AU, the wings au no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinVax/pseuds/TwinVax
Summary: The Mighty Nein, and how they see their wings.





	The Nature of Wings

**Author's Note:**

> The wings au no one asked for, yet here it is!

 

Calebs wings were beautiful and healthy, the colors of a sunset, from the cultivation and love his parents used to put into them. They were big and he was proud how they could lift him up from the ground.

When the feathers began to fall, and his wings shrunk to a size that didn’t allow flight, he didn’t understand. They were ugly and sad, and Trent told him not to worry. That meant it would be easier to find the traitors, the ones to blame for the love lost.

Trent who, Caleb would only realize later, had barely any feathers to his own small wings, and never let him or the others have the love needed to fully grow.

The fault was still Caleb’s own for believing the tricks.

He never expected them to get better, to grow and have the beautifully colored feathers return, but Nott surprised him. While they never grew to how large they used to be, his own dislike for himself sfopping such a thing, her own genuine care for him grew them back from the shriveled mess theyd become in the years he had been broken.

He was fairly sure his love and care for her allowed her own some growth as well.

The Mighty Nein were still new to him, but he could feel that they cared, even if he didn’t think he deserved it. It didn’t change the fact that his feathers grew bigger and brighter, the wings almost capable of flight once more, the longer he was with them. 

 

* * *

 

Beau’s wings were her own, while everything else in her life was meant for someone else. They weren’t impressive, or big, but they were a deep blue unlike the cobalt of her clothing and she liked them. 

They were her’s, not anyone else’s, no matter how great or how shit they were. She didn’t care. 

Her father didn’t approve of them, not like he ever did or she cared if he did. She was just fine with their growth coming from her. 

They were delicate, broken easily in the fights she participated in and incapable of flight forever. She knew it wouldn't matter if they eventually grew big enough, the sustained continual injuries from her flapping them in peoples faces, or using them to block hits meant for her own face, flight would never be possible for her. She didn’t care about that anyway.

Her wings were her own, and while she wouldn’t be able to fly with them, it was gratifying to see something that was entirely her own grow from the love the Mighty Nein had for  _her_  instead of who people wanted her to be. 

 

* * *

 

The halflings wings were beautiful, covered in fluffy feathers that were speckled browns. By the time Nott had arrived to assist her clans torturer, the bones in his wings had been broken, feathers pulled out and bleeding, but Nott still thought they were beautiful.

She didn’t have any wings, and she didn’t understand why anyone did until she befriended him, shielding him from further torture under the assumption she would get useful information. No one loved her, and why would they? She was a goblin, they were horrible and they didn't deserve the wings that other people had.

He taught her how to speak his language, how to do alchemy and the things normal people who weren’t her understood as normal and good. Then, before the clan could kill him after she learned everything he knew, she shot one of the others in the butt and ran, leaving him to go back to his village while she ran as far as she could from the clan.

It was only after she stopped that she noticed she had grown wings, to small to properly know what they were. They only grew after meeting Caleb in the cell and spending months together with him, big enough for Caleb to identify them as matching the type of wings a bat had. Brown and furry, with the thin webbing between the thin bones that looked more like fingers then the proper wing bones she knew belonged to the nicer wings that the halfling and Caleb both had.

Ugly things befit for a goblin, she guessed, a bit bitterly.

Being part of the Mighty Nein made them big enough for her to fly, something she guessed was a good thing that people normally wanted, even if people rarely flew anyway.

They proved that someone loved her, Caleb and Jester and all the rest. It was nice that they did, even if she was a goblin, but she couldn’t help but hate them. She couldn’t help but hope for different looking wings someday, that they would look as feathery and beautifully colored as the halflings were.

 

* * *

 

Fjord had always lived close to water, but he wasn’t sure he appreciated that his wings reflected that. The wings that grew from the respect he earned while part of a boats crew were more similar to a bugs than a birds. From the little research he did about what they were similar to, he found the dragonfly was a close comparison.

He’d never seen a full blooded Orc, but he supposed even his wings took after them more than his human half. Instead of the soft feathers or occasional fur covered wing, he dealt with two sets of wings, one behind the other, that basically consisted of a network of flexible veins held together by thin chitin.

It was fine, he’d grown into his own in the years, it didn’t matter much if he got teased or not at that point. He would have greatly appreciated it more if they didn’t disintegrate and re grow whenever it struck their fancy to become a different size though.

After the shit got fucked, nothing much changed about his wings, unless people went looking for patterns in them, than they’d notice the veins connected to resemble barnacles and other small ocean life. Maybe one would even notice the large single eye in one of them, though he didn’t keep them open long enough for people to look close.

He showed them to the rest of the Mighty Nein if asked, but otherwise kept them to himself. 

 

* * *

 

Mollymauk clawed himself free from the dirt with large, flight capable, brown furred wings. It took him awhile to come into himself, but he never liked the wings. They clashed terribly with his clothes and his tattoos, and they  _weren't his_. They weren’t. They were someone else’s from a life he refused to claim as his own. 

Someone who, he hated knowing after being told of the significance, had been greatly loved. 

He learned through a bit of experimentation that his own hatred towards the person who owned the wings made them shrivel and shrink. He kept by himself for what felt like months hating the person he didn’t remember, until no griffon wings sprouted from his back, a feat more difficult than he liked to admit, as whoever loved him still held some sway, as did his family in the carnival. 

His own will won out, and he was happy to go on with his life without the wings, until he noticed some purple feathers fall from under his coat after more time traveling with Gustav’s carnival family.

His wings had returned, though slightly smaller in size, covered in the softest purple feathers he had ever touched. 

He loved them. They were  _his_  wings, grown from the love the carnival and Yasha had for him as their family. They proved that Molly was Molly, and no one else. Proof same as his clothes and his jewelry and his tattoos that this identity and body was completely his. 

The wings were his, and they thrived, with the Carnival, with Yasha, and with the Mighty Nein. 

 

* * *

 

Jester’s wings were an icy blue, transparent like one of the glass sculptures in her mothers home. Before she started following the Traveler, her wings were different, structured like a birds with blue fur, too small to let her fly, and very boring. 

She knew the reason for their lack of growth, and knew that she loved herself and that her mother loved her. Jester could never blame her mom for not wanting others to know about her, it would make everything super difficult to live if they did after all, but if others knew, maybe her wings would have been big enough to distract her. Big enough to fly so she wouldn’t be bored. 

Her mothers wings were the most beautiful she had ever seen, the red fur so soft from the care put into it at the end of the day. Jester knew the people who came to the house loved her mom, and how they loved her wings most of all. 

When the Traveler came to keep her company one day, the wings had been a gift to show his appreciation. A spell that permanently changed her wings to show her mothers love, her own and the Traveler’s. 

He told her a story of the Feywild, where the fairies had wings that always stayed the same because people always loved them, and explained that he had done that to her wings to the best of his ability. Though the icy transparent look had happened mysteriously on it’s own.

She personally thought her wings looked like butterfly wings, and she loved them!

She could fly if she got bored, and was much happier now that three people’s love was enough for her wings to flourish on their own. They were cold to the touch, and her mother was worried about the change, but she left it alone because Jester was happy with them. 

When she escaped the house to save herself, she worried that the man’s hatred for the harmless prank would hurt her wings, and it did, sort of. There were cracks in the wings for awhile, until she ran into Fjord and Beauregard, and then the rest of the Mighty Nein. 

The cracks disappeared, and Jester was almost sure that they grew a little bit.

Jester couldn’t be happier about how wonderful her wings had turned out, after starting out on her own adventure!

 

* * *

 

 

Yasha’s wings weren’t normal, but she wouldn’t know that until later. She had always been able to make them appear and disappear whenever she chose, even if it was something that made her stick out more and made her existence difficult growing up, unwavering in their height regardless of if she were loved or not. 

They were beautiful wings, feathers golden, clean and completely perfect. She didn’t know when that changed, or what had happened to cause it, but one day they no longer let her fly. She was grounded and trapped in a place she didn’t want to be, her feathers melted away into nothing until she was left with just the bone structure, and she couldn’t _get out_. 

The Stormlord saved her life, but couldn’t fix her wings. She appreciated what he had done for her anyway, and followed him in any way he directed. She kept her wings hidden where she traveled, only bringing them out accidentally on occasion when startled, terrifying any who looked at her for long enough to kill them or protect herself. 

Yasha kept them hidden, a feature of herself she didn’t understand that worked differently from the rest, until she couldn’t hide it from the rest of the Mighty Nein. 

They had no answers for her, and she wasn't really looking or asking for any, but maybe someday she would be able to figure it out. She was fine without either way, even if she did miss being able to fly. 


End file.
